Watch What You Wish For!

 For April, May and June our staff worked extremely hard to keep new sod and seed alive, with high temps, low humidity and almost no rainfall.  I remember hoping for a few downpours to help us keep new grass alive and help germinate the out of play fescue seed.

The rains came and havent let up for almost 3 weeks.  Creating playability issues and hampering maintenance.

Once the humidity kicked, grass has been growing like a weed, leaving clippings everywhere.  Regardless of growth regulators and frequent mowings, once the natural rainfall releases all the nutrients in the soil you are fighting it until the humidity and rainfall subside.

When it Rains it Pours!

 As if torrential rains of late havent been challenging, this large Tulip fell in the pond on 14.  A big machine will be needed to pull it out of the pond once they are able to cut it up.  With limited access this will be a challenge to get this removed without making a complete mess!

This is not the lake on 7 but it is the puddle in front of the range tee.  When we built the range back in 2016, we identified this problem and added drainage.  With the renovation, the drain pipe was cut and not repaired and we are back to square one.  The contractor will have to dig in the berm you see in the backdrop to connect the pipe back to where it drains to.

After a significant rain, we noticed the bunker on 3 was full of water.  How can that be, it is brand new with new drainage.  The outflow pipe under the fairway was inadvertently cut by the irrigation crew and not repaired.  After some digging, we found the issue and resolved it.  

While a golf course renovation and irrigation system replacement projects are stressful enough and once the contractor has left the course, we all assume everything is going to be great.  It took extreme heat and drought this summer to identify irrigation shortcomings and now heavy rains in July and August to find drainage issues.  It will be a good 12 months until we feel we have everything under control.